It is known in the packaging of baked goods, such as cakes, pies, tortes, tarts and pastry items and, generally, in the packaging of articles sensitive to pressure and which can be deformed by the application of pressure, to displace the articles to be packaged continuously in a forward direction and to cause them to deposit upon packaging underlays which can then be enclosed by a cover member.
Both the articles and the packaging underlays can be fed to a location at which they meet at a given point in time so that the transfer is effected from the article conveyor to the underlay with a minimum of disturbance to the article. Generally the two paths are inclined at an acute angle to one another converging that location.
In Swiss patent 356,400, baked goods are deposited on packing underlays which are fed beneath the transfer location with practically no spacing between them. The baked goods, fabricated in cavities of a forming roll and deposited upon a suction belt, are transported by this belt to the transfer location. It is essential for this system and, indeed, a key aspect of the fabrication method, that the baked articles always be at a fixed distance from one another along the transport belt. For a transfer of the baked articles to the packing underlays, in this system, therefore, all that is required is a synchronization of the drives for the transport conveyor and the underlay conveyor which generally is effected by mechanically coupling them.
For a large number of products, however, especially cakes and deep-frozen comestibles, the maintenance of a constant fixed distance between the articles on the transport conveyor cannot be assured. For such products, therefore, the method of the Swiss patent cannot be used.
German printed application DE-AS 12 58 779 describes a process in which the articles advanced on a transport belt are engaged by entrainers of a high-speed circulating conveyor and transferred thereby to a further belt which is connected with a packaging machine. With the aid of the circulating conveyor, the articles to be packed are positioned equidistantly upon the packaging-belt conveyor. At another location, the packaging process can be carried out. This two-stage approach to effectively positioning the articles along transport conveyors requires expensive equipment and, from a technological viewpoint, is expensive. With highly pressure-sensitive products, such as cakes, damage may be caused to the product by the entrainers circulating at higher speeds.
British patent 1,444,640 describes a process for packaging pressure-sensitive comestible products, including baked goods, utilizing an intermittently operating system. The articles to be packaged are moved transversely to the transport direction of the packaging materials and are shoved onto the packaging material when the packaging material comes to rest. The operating speed in such processes is capable of improvement.